8 ms·

The success of most* social media platforms was largely unconnected with the developers who built it or the underlying software. You can't just hire a few hundr

The success of most* social media platforms was largely unconnected with the developers who built it or the underlying software. You can't just hire a few hundred retrenched developers and expect to come up with a successful social media platform after some number of months. Timing, marketing, and user psychology are much more important. * I'd say TikTok is the exception, because delivering (a) instantaneous video and (b) useful algorithmic recommendations is a technically difficult proposition. But at the same time, I'd argue their success was driven largely by the music licensing deals they initially cut (and their insane marketing spend), which is what caused their early growth.

mikeryan 4y ago
I agree with a lot of what you say, but in this hypothetical I'm envisioning this a bit differently then a completely new social network so much as Twitter 2.0 with a very direct focus on getting a large "Lift and Shift" of users directly from Twitter. I should also be clear that I'm assuming a relatively proportional level of talent across Product, Design etc too not just retrenched engineers.
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  >getting a large "Lift and Shift" of users directly from Twitter Why would someone switch from Twitter? If anything, you might expect more freedom of speech and less bots on Twitter. On the parallel Twitter the maximum you can expect is the old Twitter minus some functionality, plus some offline time and some bugs.
  - Nowado 4y ago
    Avoiding some of that free speech. One could even hope for all of it to stay contained within Twitter.
  - Certhas 4y ago
    It's not hard to have a free speech platform. It's hard to have a useful speech platform. Useful speech probably requires editing and moderation and so far it's pretty clear algorithms and upvote/downvote systems aren't terribly good at it. It seems to me that the last decade or so provides ample evidence that allowing everyone to say everything they want is almost certainly anti-correlated with substantial and meaningful debate.
    - cudgy 4y ago
      It seems to me that the last decade or so provides ample evidence that not allowing everyone to say everything they want is almost certainly anti-correlated with substantial and meaningful debate.
      - Certhas 4y ago
        Our perceptions differ markedly then. I have a fairly plausible mechanism behind my observation: Getting your thoughts published and disseminated used to require buy in from a wide range of people, the publishers essentially. Publishers edited and moderated what they published so they could gain a reputation as trustworthy or sensationalist. Maintaining that reputation was essential for the business. Who would buy a newspaper with a reputation for false reporting? Removing the publishers at replacing them with algorithms designed to maximize engagement removed this intermediate layer of reputation checks. Further as the infrastructure is paid for exclusively by ads and those can be targeted fairly well, engagement is far more important than platform reputation. This has reduced the level of public discourse markedly and wrong and discredited opinions can gain substantial audiences and establish strong societal narratives with no "human editor in the loop". This we are seeing an influence of conspiracy theoretical thinking on advanced democracies that would have been unthinkable even in the 90s.
        cudgy 4y ago
        “as the infrastructure is paid for exclusively by ads and those can be targeted fairly well, engagement is far more important than platform reputation” This is the key problem for sure, but it applies to all content providers from the largest publishers to tiny “publishers” like you and I when we post a comment on a site that is ad-supported. To take away people’s freedom of expression due to the revenue model is arbitrary and inconsistent with a free, advanced society. You suggest that there should be gatekeepers to verify the reputation and veracity of content and the individual posting the content, but these gatekeepers are themselves biased and unable to know the “truth” in most situations as there is a debate about what is the truth. Stifling debate through this filter is detrimental to discourse and results in group-think and a general lack of creative thought. It is generally unscientific and authoritarian, which history (very recent history at that) has proven quite clearly.
  - misnome 4y ago
    > more freedom of speech and less bots on Twitter Isn’t this a self-contradiction?
bamboozled 4y ago
Yes but this is good timing. A lot of people are pretty unsatisfied with Musk as a human lately and it seems like if there was an alternative available, people would go there quickly.
- IgorPartola 4y ago
  Could a commercial player grab an existing open protocol like Mastodon and just put a really slick UI/UX on that?
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  Who is unsatisfied with Elon and would switch to something else for that? Is there a market study?
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    Switching cost is 0 as long as your friends are on the other platform. Just get enough people pissed off at elon to "try" out the new service and enough might stick around.
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    I've seen him say and do a lot of controversial and in my opinion very immoral things in the last year. Maybe I'm just talking for myself but if I used Twitter, and a decent modern alternative existed, I'd at least make an account and hope other came along so I didn't have to be part of his "town square" or his "everything app" (which sounds like a nightmare). I think Musk has done some good things in the past, but honestly, he seems like an asshole and increasingly willing to do questionable things for money and to protect his interests. I don't use any of his products and I'd been more than happy if it stays that way.
    - cudgy 4y ago
      Interesting. What technologies do you use that you are fully aware that no assholes were involved in its creation? How does one go about ensuring they follow this no-asshole rule? Many considered Steve Jobs to be an asshole. Do you use an apple product? How about Bill Gates and Microsoft? Or Linus and Linux? Or Amazon and Jeff Bezos? Or Oracle and Larry Ellison? Or Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg? Or …

mikeryan 4y ago

I agree with a lot of what you say, but in this hypothetical I'm envisioning this a bit differently then a completely new social network so much as Twitter 2.0 with a very direct focus on getting a large "Lift and Shift" of users directly from Twitter. I should also be clear that I'm assuming a relatively proportional level of talent across Product, Design etc too not just retrenched engineers.

DeathArrow 4y ago
>getting a large "Lift and Shift" of users directly from Twitter Why would someone switch from Twitter? If anything, you might expect more freedom of speech and less bots on Twitter. On the parallel Twitter the maximum you can expect is the old Twitter minus some functionality, plus some offline time and some bugs.
- Nowado 4y ago
  Avoiding some of that free speech. One could even hope for all of it to stay contained within Twitter.
- Certhas 4y ago
  It's not hard to have a free speech platform. It's hard to have a useful speech platform. Useful speech probably requires editing and moderation and so far it's pretty clear algorithms and upvote/downvote systems aren't terribly good at it. It seems to me that the last decade or so provides ample evidence that allowing everyone to say everything they want is almost certainly anti-correlated with substantial and meaningful debate.
  - cudgy 4y ago
    It seems to me that the last decade or so provides ample evidence that not allowing everyone to say everything they want is almost certainly anti-correlated with substantial and meaningful debate.
    - Certhas 4y ago
      Our perceptions differ markedly then. I have a fairly plausible mechanism behind my observation: Getting your thoughts published and disseminated used to require buy in from a wide range of people, the publishers essentially. Publishers edited and moderated what they published so they could gain a reputation as trustworthy or sensationalist. Maintaining that reputation was essential for the business. Who would buy a newspaper with a reputation for false reporting? Removing the publishers at replacing them with algorithms designed to maximize engagement removed this intermediate layer of reputation checks. Further as the infrastructure is paid for exclusively by ads and those can be targeted fairly well, engagement is far more important than platform reputation. This has reduced the level of public discourse markedly and wrong and discredited opinions can gain substantial audiences and establish strong societal narratives with no "human editor in the loop". This we are seeing an influence of conspiracy theoretical thinking on advanced democracies that would have been unthinkable even in the 90s.
      - cudgy 4y ago
        “as the infrastructure is paid for exclusively by ads and those can be targeted fairly well, engagement is far more important than platform reputation” This is the key problem for sure, but it applies to all content providers from the largest publishers to tiny “publishers” like you and I when we post a comment on a site that is ad-supported. To take away people’s freedom of expression due to the revenue model is arbitrary and inconsistent with a free, advanced society. You suggest that there should be gatekeepers to verify the reputation and veracity of content and the individual posting the content, but these gatekeepers are themselves biased and unable to know the “truth” in most situations as there is a debate about what is the truth. Stifling debate through this filter is detrimental to discourse and results in group-think and a general lack of creative thought. It is generally unscientific and authoritarian, which history (very recent history at that) has proven quite clearly.
- misnome 4y ago
  > more freedom of speech and less bots on Twitter Isn’t this a self-contradiction?

bamboozled 4y ago

Yes but this is good timing. A lot of people are pretty unsatisfied with Musk as a human lately and it seems like if there was an alternative available, people would go there quickly.

IgorPartola 4y ago
Could a commercial player grab an existing open protocol like Mastodon and just put a really slick UI/UX on that?
DeathArrow 4y ago
Who is unsatisfied with Elon and would switch to something else for that? Is there a market study?
- nebula8804 4y ago
  Switching cost is 0 as long as your friends are on the other platform. Just get enough people pissed off at elon to "try" out the new service and enough might stick around.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  I've seen him say and do a lot of controversial and in my opinion very immoral things in the last year. Maybe I'm just talking for myself but if I used Twitter, and a decent modern alternative existed, I'd at least make an account and hope other came along so I didn't have to be part of his "town square" or his "everything app" (which sounds like a nightmare). I think Musk has done some good things in the past, but honestly, he seems like an asshole and increasingly willing to do questionable things for money and to protect his interests. I don't use any of his products and I'd been more than happy if it stays that way.
  - cudgy 4y ago
    Interesting. What technologies do you use that you are fully aware that no assholes were involved in its creation? How does one go about ensuring they follow this no-asshole rule? Many considered Steve Jobs to be an asshole. Do you use an apple product? How about Bill Gates and Microsoft? Or Linus and Linux? Or Amazon and Jeff Bezos? Or Oracle and Larry Ellison? Or Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg? Or …